Paris Revealed

by Stephen Clarke

  To the city’s residents, this constant demolition is all a bit traumatic. It’s as though there’s a permanent threat hanging over Paris’s neck, like some giant municipal guillotine—who knows when someone will unveil a plan to turn Notre-Dame into a multi-storey car park or flatten Montmartre to create a city airport?

  For me, though, it is this constant spirit of change that is the unchanging thing about Paris. Life itself stays the same—it is only the setting that changes. Take La Coupole, for example, the classic brasserie at Montparnasse with its wonderful Art Deco murals that are a monument to Parisian café culture. In the 1980s, the owners plonked a glass-fronted tower block on top—architectural vandalism par excellence, you might say. But the brasserie’s interior, and the life going on inside it, didn’t change at all. Today, you can sit and eat oysters beneath the jazz-age frescoes and not care how many modern storeys are piled up over your head.

  You can’t say the same of Les Halles and Beaubourg, of course, but even they have matured and been sucked into Parisian life. Students queue to study and chat each other up in the Beaubourg library, while the pedestrian streets around Les Halles are where suburban kids come to escape their depressing new towns, and the underground shopping centre now houses the second-biggest cinema complex in the world,******* with a dozen screens, over 3,000 seats, and 120 staff. Similarly, there were howls of protest when the Louvre courtyard was ‘desecrated’ with a glass pyramid in 1989, but these days it’s impossible to imagine the museum without its futuristic entrance. The Pyramide du Louvre was one of President Mitterrand’s departing gifts to the nation, and he definitely wouldn’t have said that he was ignoring Paris’s history by commissioning the shockingly modernist building. On the contrary, he was writing himself into that history.

  So, oui, Paris is a beautifully preserved historical city, although by no means as well preserved as it could have been, and is, one could argue, much more interesting for it.

  To redeem themselves for their past acts of destruction, though, it seems that the powers-that-be want to restore some of Paris’s lost beauty, because there are now plans afoot to reclaim the riverbanks from the cars. At last, the wheel may actually be turning the other way.

  * It wasn’t until the fourth century AD that the city got its modern name, an abbreviation of the Latin civitas Parisiorum, or the town of the Parisi, the Gallic tribe who had previously governed the region.

  ** Which would have been appropriate, because it was partly the bogginess of the badly built university campus at Nanterre that sparked off the student riots in May 1968.

  *** Interestingly, Hugo signed off his letter, ‘Je vous serre la main’—‘I shake your hand’—perhaps a reference to Grévy’s membership of the Freemasons. Hugo’s father, General Joseph Hugo, had been a mason. In Paris, it’s always easier to lobby friends of the family.

  **** For more details of Paris’s role in the martyrdom of France’s teenage patron saint, see my book 1,000 Years of Annoying the French.

  ***** Napoleon III was also inspired to rebuild Paris by a stay in Southport, on the northwest coast of England, and some say that Paris should therefore be nicknamed the Southport of the South.

  ****** Some 350 of these pictures of pre-Haussmann Paris, alongside new photos of the same spots today, are reproduced in a book called Paris Avant/Après: 19e Siècle–21e Siècle by Patrice de Moncan.

  ******* The biggest is in Korea. South, of course.

  It’s behind you … Many visitors come to Paris to meander from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre to Notre-Dame, and ignore them completely.

  6

  ROMANCE

  L’amour ne meurt jamais de besoin, mais souvent d’indigestion.

  (Love never dies of want, but often of indigestion.)*

  NINON DE LENCLOS, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY

  WRITER AND COURTESAN

  Amour glamour

  ROMANCE IS, of course, a matter of personal taste. One person’s favourite love song will send another diving for earplugs. Couples who met during a blizzard probably find it highly romantic to spend the occasional evening sitting with their feet in buckets of ice cream. That’s the great thing about romance. It’s completely personal.

  Most people, however, seem to agree on one thing—that Paris is inherently romantic. There’s something about the combination of riverbank sunsets, snug restaurants, effortless elegance and affordable Champagne that strikes a chord in almost everyone’s heart.

  When we look at Robert Doisneau’s famous photo of a couple snatching a kiss on a Paris street, something subconscious convinces us all that if we could only be walking past the Hôtel de Ville right now, we too would feel the urgent need to grab our loved one and clamp ourselves to their lips. Like the tousled young guy in the photo, we might even take the cigarette out of our mouth to do so.

  Doisneau snapped hundreds of Paris street scenes, some of them impromptu, others less so, but it’s no coincidence that ‘The Lovers’ is his best-known photo. Their clinch seems to sum up the city in one primal gesture.

  It doesn’t matter that the picture was posed—Doisneau took it in 1950 as part of a photo report for Life magazine, and pragmatically chose the Hôtel de Ville as a backdrop that would be easily recognizable to foreigners. So it’s art, not life, but who cares? It is an image created by someone who loved the city and what it stood for, and it’s brilliantly acted, too—the male model is squashing his nose against his partner’s face so passionately that she hangs almost breathless in his arms.

  And the background to the photo is perfect—the heat of the embrace is set against the dull, damp weather and the disapproving glance of a lady passer-by (who was not posing), while behind the couple, an office worker, buttoned up tight in his overcoat, a beret clamped over his knitted brow, suddenly seems to have realized what is missing from his life—romance. The lovers, meanwhile, turn their backs on the dullness around them and live the Parisian dream. And we all want to be right there, right now.

  What is it about Paris that does this to people? Is it the sheer density of kissing couples per square kilometre, or the almost infinite number of viewpoints where you can stand with your loved one and gaze out across glittering lights? Or is it simply expectation—you’re almost obliged to feel romantic in Paris the same way that you laugh before a famous comedian even opens his or her mouth?

  Well, yes to most of those rhetorical questions, but they aren’t the only reasons for the city’s success as a venue for canoodling.

  The city that can’t fail

  Like a well-chilled glass of Champagne,** Paris is almost always capable of hitting the mark, whatever your tastes in matter of the heart.

  To get us in the mood for romance, all most of us need is some period décor (interior or exterior), soft lighting, tasteful music (which is why, for me, the accordion is a no-no) and time to stroll, sit or loll while exchanging mots d’amour with the love of your life (or of that evening).

  You also need to feel classy. A romantic evening or weekend doesn’t work if there’s anything fake or sordid about it, and genuine class is something that runs through Paris’s veins. Everything about the city feels authentic, not just a bunch of elements packaged together and marketed at the tourist hordes. The waiters are real, rather than seasonal student workers, and their aprons are the same shape and size as they have been since the nineteenth century. The restaurants aren’t converted warehouses—they’re traditional eating-houses, often decorated exactly as they were in the Belle Époque, or the Années Folles of the 1920s, and probably frequented by as many locals as visitors because the food will be genuinely French. Your dinner may not always be candlelit, but no matter—it will feel as if the candles are there, glowing like the flames of your love (and in French, even cheesy metaphors like that don’t sound hackneyed). In short, your romantic soirée in Paris won’t be just a night out on the town, it will be an occasion, a tête-à-tête. After all, Champagne is practically local produce.

  And these e
ssential ingredients are available all over the city, at places that have been listed in endless guidebooks. What’s more, the best-known sites usually work a treat. The Sacré Coeur on its hilltop is a wonderful viewpoint; a bench on the riverbank can afford a timeless view of Notre-Dame; and when the Eiffel Tower starts its shimmering light display,*** the couples on the balcony of the Palais de Chaillot at Trocadéro can’t help but go ‘ooh’ and snuggle just a little closer.

  But the best-known lovers’ dallying spot has to be the Pont des Arts, the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Seine at the eastern end of the Louvre. It has been a romantic meeting place ever since it was built in the 1980s, and was officially consecrated as such in the clinching episode of Sex in the City, when whatsername, the spindly blond narrator, finally gets it together with whatsisname, the tall, stuffy rich guy.

  For couples wanting to gaze at romantic Paris, it’s an ideal location. First of all, the gaps between the slats in the boardwalk mean that anyone with vertigo will cling more than affectionately to their partner as they look down into the rushing Seine. Then there is the absence of traffic—no danger of getting run over as you kiss. And, from the centre of the bridge, the 360-degree view is perfect. To the east, there is the pinnacle of Notre-Dame, the Pont Neuf and the weeping willows on the triangular square du Vert Galant (literally: Lusty Smooth-talker Square), where the amorous King Henri IV used to meet his mistresses. To the south is the domed Institut de France, its two neo-classical wings spread like tentacles pulling everyone into the embrace of French culture. Stretching away to the north is the whole riverside facade of the Louvre, and away to the west, beyond the twin golden splashes of the statues on the Pont Alexandre III, is the tip of the Eiffel Tower, which, as mentioned above, sparkles with unfailing regularity like an explosion in a diamond factory—a guaranteed canoodling moment.

  Granted, on a crowded evening, it can feel like queuing up for a bed in a love hotel—you’re not exactly the only ones aiming to enjoy a private romantic tryst. And the bridge is such a popular picnic spot that the city has now hung unsexy green plastic bags every 10 metres along the railings, as well as forbidding the consumption of alcohol there.

  A modern version of the lovers’ knot on the Pont des Arts. Apparently, the etiquette is for lovers to attach a padlock (preferably engraved with their initials) to the railings, and then throw the key into the Seine, thus sealing their union for ever. It is considered impolite to say, ‘I’ll keep a key just in case.’

  This hasn’t killed the mood altogether, though, and many couples come prepared to perform the bridge’s trademark love ritual. The thing to do is to attach a small padlock to the wire fencing and then throw the key into the waters below (making sure there are no bateaux-mouches passing under the bridge), thus sealing your love for ever and leaving your own permanent memorial in the city of romance.

  Personally, I have my doubts about the padlock as a symbol of amour—do you honestly need to keep your loved one in a relationship by means of a lock and key? If so, why not handcuffs (much sexier) or, if you want to get really modern, an electronic tag? And many of the padlocks have names either engraved on them or written in marker pen, but what happens if the couple separates—can they never return to the bridge for fear that their new love will see the old symbol of ‘eternal’ togetherness, or does one of them sneak back with a hacksaw and remove the evidence?

  But this is just cynicism, and the number of love locks is growing steadily on the Pont des Arts (and other, more exclusive, bridges), so it looks as though optimism has won the day, as of course it should do where romance is concerned.

  Yes, we canal

  There are some less well-known, but equally romantic, spots for an arm-in-arm stroll in Paris. My favourite is in the north of the city, at the Bassin de la Villette.

  At first sight, this canal basin has one or two minor disadvantages. First, it is near Paris’s least romantically named square—the place de Stalingrad. This is the problem with countries like France that have had a lasting revolution—they tend to give their streets and squares highly unpoetic names—National Uprising Avenue, Victory of the People Boulevard, Decapitation of the Royal Family Gardens. And in Paris, this effect is heightened because of its traditional solidarity towards Communist republics, including the old USSR.

  Coupled with the problem of the name, the Bassin de la Villette used to be a drug dealers’ hangout. There is still a very small community of crackheads living by the waterside, but they keep themselves to themselves these days, no doubt because they have seen the way the social tide is turning (yes, even by a canal, there can be tides), and know that they will be moving on soon.

  These days, on a warm evening, the area is perfect for a lovers’ stroll, mainly because of the lighting. At the southernmost end of the basin, twin industrial glass buildings have been turned into cinemas decorated with multi-coloured neon artwork. On one side, the MK2 Quai de Seine is lit up with simple lines of blue and white that turn the dark sheen of the water into a star-encrusted Van Gogh night sky. Opposite, the MK2 Quai de Loire is even more colourful. It sports two glowing child’s faces, and the building’s metal columns are all lit a different shade—purple, pink and red.

  Looking further along the basin, you see another twin-set of industrial buildings. One, now a waterside students’ residence, has retained its stone walls, but the other has been covered in a chainmail of walkways and balconies that pulse with ever-changing neon colours like some kind of giant metal squid. As soon as dusk falls, the building begins to flow through the spectrum, changing tone every few seconds, and lighting up the whole of the canal basin at its widest point so you almost feel as though you could walk across the silk carpet.****

  The southeastern bank of the basin, the Quai de la Loire, which catches the sun for longer in the evenings, has become the place to be on summer nights. Picnics on the bank of the Seine? Old chapeau. These days, you pack up your wine and glasses, not forgetting your corkscrew, buy a few baguettes and delicacies to drape or smear on them, and then stake your spot on the cobbled stones of the canalside between the cinema and the students’ residence. Here, you can drink a toast while looking out over the second-best (but most colourful) mood lighting in Paris, and listening to the laughter of the people behind you playing pétanque.

  Yes, the stretch of gravel running alongside the basin has been rediscovered by a new generation of boules players. Stroll along here any evening between May and September and you need to watch that your feet don’t get bombarded by large lead balls. And if you haven’t got your own boules, it doesn’t matter, because the bar halfway down the quai, the Bar Ourcq, lends out pétanque sets, and even has deckchairs for people who have forgotten their picnic blankets.

  In short, the Bassin de la Villette has it all—soft mood lighting reflecting on the water, Parisians being très parisiens, and the opportunity to drink lots of wine. Romance quotient: 100 per cent.

  What’s more, after your stroll, you can go into one of the cinemas and see a French film. It will almost certainly be about love. You might not understand the dialogues, but that doesn’t matter because if you’ve seen one French love story, you’ve seen them all. The dialogue goes something like this:

  ‘Je t’aime.’

  ‘I love you too, darling.’

  ‘But why did you sleep with that other woman?’

  ‘My love, it’s because you’re so perfect that I had to shag someone else to prove to myself that you’re real.’

  ‘Oh Pierre, you’re so poetic.’

  ‘Yes, and what’s more I wrote, directed and starred in the film, so I’m an all-round pretty amazing guy. And you do realize that, as a French actress, you are contractually obliged to get your kit off, so why don’t you start stripping while I have a quick smoke?’

  Of course it won’t always be like this—if it’s a thriller, the guy will have a gun. But in any case, it’ll be French, meaning you’ll almost certainly get a naked love scene, as well as pictur
esque views of Paris to try and sell the movie to American distributors, so your evening’s romance quotient is bound to soar to dizzying heights.

  Romance closer to home

  The Bassin de la Villette is a bit of a trek out of the centre of Paris, so those visitors who want to stay central might prefer a more attainable venue for their romantic stroll.

  There is, for example, the Palais-Royal, right opposite that other former royal palace, the Louvre. Not very original, some might say, but it is a peaceful spot just a few steps from the mad rush of the rue de Rivoli, a place to linger and whisper sweet nothings or, pourquoi pas, sweet somethings—Paris has always been a philosophers’ city, so there is no reason for lovers’ whisperings to be inane.

  And these gardens were designed for Parisians who wanted to come and speak freely about love, life, politics and any other deep things that excite them. The arched galleries around the square were built in the 1780s for King Louis XVI’s brother, the Duc d’Orléans, who owned the palace and its park, but didn’t want to live there any more. So, just like a modern property speculator, he decided to maximize the value of his centrally located land by erecting some shiny new apartments and shops around the edge of the gardens. The King is said to have scoffed at his brother, saying, ‘So you’re opening a shop? Does this mean we’ll only see you on Sundays?’*****

  The Paris effect. Before their stroll in the Palais Royal gardens, this couple hadn’t even held hands.